The path to the Sector Nine barracks was a descent into utilitarian squalor. While the high-tier legacy students were routed toward the upper-tier residential blocks—complete with localized mana-gathering arrays and private quarters—the unaffiliated conscripts and Zeros were marched down into the damp, low-ceilinged underbelly of the fortress.
The air here tasted of rust and wet limestone. The barracks room itself was an oppressive, cavernous hall made of raw, unpolished obsidian blocks. Triple-tiered steel bunks stretched into the gloom in precise, military rows, separated only by narrow walkways. There were no sheets, only thin, coarse wool blankets smelling heavily of chemical disinfectant.
As Zeke and Luke stepped through the heavy iron threshold, the low hum of conversation in the room abruptly died.
Nearly eighty recruits had already arrived, and every single eye slammed onto the duo. The social fallout of the evaluation field was instantaneous and tangible. The low-tier conscripts huddled on the lower bunks shrank back, staring at Luke with a mixture of reverence and profound caution. To them, an unaffiliated 450 MP anomaly who could materialize plasma weaponry out of thin air was someone to be feared.
But the looks directed at Zeke were entirely different. They were fractured.
The remaining legacy sycophants who had been assigned to the lower barracks due to subpar scores glared at him with pure, venomous hatred. Julian Drake's throat-grab had humiliated their entire caste. Yet, beneath that anger was a layer of unsettling confusion. A Zero shouldn't be able to shatter a kinetic barrier. A Zero shouldn't be able to detonate a Subterranean Scavenger with a single, unenhanced punch. They were looking at a glitch in their worldview, and it terrified them.
"Looks like we're popular," Luke murmured, entirely unbothered by the heavy atmosphere. He scanned the room before pointing toward a corner bunk near the back exit. "There. Top two racks are free. Less foot traffic, and we keep our backs to solid stone."
"Works for me," Zeke said evenly.
They walked down the center aisle. The crowd parted before them like water before a prow, kids shifting their boots out of the way to avoid making eye contact. Zeke hoisted his rugged canvas duffel bag onto the middle tier, while Luke agilely vaulted straight up to the top bunk, resting his back against the cold obsidian wall.
"Hey. Vale, right?"
A hesitant voice broke the silence from the bottom bunk. A scrawny kid with thick glasses and a faded, oversized civilian shirt was looking up at Luke, his hands trembling slightly as he clutched a standard-issue Vanguard manual.
"That's me," Luke replied down to him, his tone returning to its casual, playful warmth. "What's the word, scribe?"
"I'm Toby," the kid muttered, casting a quick, terrified glance toward Zeke before looking back up. "I... I have an appraisal-type trait. I watched your fight in Zone Four. The system testers logged your magic as a Copy-Variant, but the structure of that plasma gauntlet didn't exist in the academy's database. You didn't copy that from anyone, did you?"
Luke's blue eyes narrowed just a fraction, a sharp, incredibly calculating glint passing through them before he offered a lazy, disarming smirk. "The system says it's a copy, Toby. Who am I to argue with the machine? Maybe I just copied it from a dream."
Toby swallowed hard, recognizing the polite warning in Luke's voice. He nodded quickly and retreated back into his manual.
Zeke sat on the edge of his middle bunk, his long legs dangling. He could feel the heavy, localized stares of a group of Julian Drake's allies across the room—four kids wearing matching silk-lined undershirts, their hands subtly twitching near their hidden weapon pockets. They were whispering, plotting some form of retaliation to restore their broken pride.
Let them try, Zeke thought, his expression completely hollow. Every single hour he had spent getting systematically dismantled by Cyrus had forged an entirely different threshold for threat assessment. These kids weren't predators; they were just loud.
Closing his eyes, Zeke leaned back against the steel frame of the bunk and turned his focus entirely inward.
With his consciousness detached from the physical noise of the barracks, he called upon his internal interface. The gold notifications had cleared, but a strange, deep crimson pulse was vibrating at the lowest margin of his spiritual peripheral vision. It wasn't the standard cosmic system interface. It was something else—something raw, dark, and heavy.
[ALERT: SOUL CORE UNSTABLE DURING SYSTEM RESOLUTION] [GLITCHED OVERRIDE DETECTED // ACCESSING BEAST ARCHIVE...]
Zeke's mind shifted. The standard blue-and-gold system windows dissolved, replaced by a stark, ink-black ledger that seemed to bleed light into his consciousness. The text was rendered in ancient, jagged runes that automatically translated themselves into his native tongue.
THE BEAST ARCHIVE (RESTRICTED ACCESS)
Current User Alignment: Unknown (Zero-Signature Suppression)
The Archive logs the true material components, structural vulnerabilities, and evolutionary lineages of all beasts native to the primal realms. By neutralizing beasts through raw kinetic force, the user extracts data fragments and latent traits directly from the target's essence.
Zeke's breath caught slightly in his throat. He looked down at the sub-menus that were slowly unlocking within his mind.
[Logged Entries: 1]
Entity: Subterranean Scavenger (Basic Tier - Common)
Data Extraction Progress: 10% (1/10 Neutralized)
Acquired Insight: Chitin Density Dissolution.
Effect: Your physical strikes now ignore 5% of all natural armor and kinetic-resistant carapaces possessed by Subterranean Beasts. (Scales with physical strength attribute).
Zeke instantly understood the implications. The standard system provided by the Alliance allowed students to learn skills through Ability Scrolls or distribute stat points based on general levels. But his glitched interface was giving him a specialized tracker that allowed him to systematically dismantle beasts from a foundational level. The more he killed with his raw physical container, the more lethal his strikes became against that specific species, making his harvest of their armor-crafting crystals flawless.
He scrolled further down, finding a locked tab that vibrated with a massive, terrifying energy signature.
[Beast Essence Crucible] — LOCKED (Requires Level 10) Extract and refine the latent traits of slain monsters to temporarily enhance your own physical container, mimicking their density, velocity, or sensory perception without utilizing an ounce of Magic Power.
This is how I close the gap, Zeke realized. The world thought he was a Zero, a flesh-and-blood shield meant to block a ditch on the frontline. But this archive meant that the battlefield wasn't his execution ground—it was his laboratory.
A loud, deliberate crash shattered his internal focus.
Zeke snapped his eyes open, his consciousness instantly returning to the damp air of the Sector Nine barracks.
Standing directly in front of his bunk was a massive recruit, easily six-foot-four, with broad, boulder-like shoulders. He was one of the legacy sycophants who had been whispering in the corner. In his right hand, he held a heavy, solid iron training staff, tapping it rhythmically against the steel frame of Zeke's bed.
"Hey, Zero," the big kid grunted, his voice thick and arrogant. "My name's Brandon. Julian Drake is a friend of mine. You caught him off guard because he was being soft. But down here, things get heavy real quick."
The barracks went entirely dead silent again. Up on the top rack, Luke slowly shifted his gaze downward, his fingers casually tracing a pattern in the air.
Zeke didn't move from his seated position. He simply looked up at Brandon, his dark eyes entirely devoid of emotion. "You're blocking the light."
Brandon let out a harsh bark of a laugh, raising the iron staff and resting it across his thick neck. "Think you're a big man because you can punch a common scavenger? Let's see how that 0 MP holds up when someone drops five hundred pounds of earth-attuned mana right onto your spine. Tomorrow morning, the live-fire tactical drills begin. When we're out in the trenches, there are no instructors looking over your shoulder. You better watch your back, trash."
Zeke slowly stood up from the bunk. He stood a full head shorter than Brandon, but the pure, unnatural stillness radiating from his frame made the larger boy's smirk falter just a fraction.
Zeke stepped closer, until his chest was nearly touching the iron staff.
"Don't wait until tomorrow morning," Zeke said, his voice a low, terrifyingly calm whisper. "If you want to do something, do it right now."
Brandon's knuckles turned white around the iron staff. His earth mana began to surge, a faint, muddy brown light crackling over his forearms. But as he stared into Zeke's completely hollow, unblinking eyes, his instincts screamed at him to freeze. He felt an invisible, crushing weight radiating from the Zero, an aura forged from thousands of agonizing repetitions and the lethal shadow of Teacher Cyrus.
For three seconds, the tension in the room was thick enough to choke on.
Finally, Brandon slowly lowered the staff, his chest heaving as he took a step back, attempting to salvage his dignity. "Tomorrow, Zero. In the trenches. Enjoy your last night of sleep."
He turned on his heel and marched back to his corner.
Luke let out a low, appreciative whistle from the top rack, leaning over the edge with his signature playful smirk. "Man, Zeke. You didn't even throw a punch and you almost made that giant wet his pants. You're a menace."
Zeke climbed back onto his bunk, pulling his canvas duffel bag under his head as a makeshift pillow.
"Let them bring whatever they want tomorrow," Zeke said quietly, closing his eyes as his daily timer began its midnight countdown. "The dirt down here is deep enough to bury all of them."